Back in the Centre of the Universe!

It’s Christmas!!! I’m writing this from Clare’s house in Eynsham (the centre of the universe!) where I’ve been for the past couple of days … I think it’s quickly becoming my second home!

A lot has happened in the past week.
Last weekend I got to skype a couple of my friends in Uganda including Brian’s daughter Berindah who I used to look after a lot. She turned 2 just before we left and it was so lovely to see her and how much she has grown, although it made me miss her a lot. (Huge thanks to Jon who is one of Smile’s current gappers, for letting us use his laptop and Skype account to talk to each oth

er!)

I went to a Carols by Candlelight service on Sunday evening with my host family which was lovely. I’ve heard a lot about that service since living with them so it was nice to get the opportunity to go along.


We had planned to have our last YFC meeting of the year on the beach on Monday morning but it was raining so we had it in Ben’s house, who lives near the sea! Still, it was good fun. I also got my car heater fixed that day so I wont freeze anymore when I’m driving – it’s quite the opposite now – it’s like a sauna in there!


My placement church did a posada this year (little figures of Mary and Joseph make their way around everyone’s house in the congregation during advent) so on Monday evening I took Mary and Joseph to their next host. It was really nice to get to spend some time with Bernie and Martin and to get to meet some of their family who were over for the evening.

I ended up back in school on Wednesday, which was a strange experience as it was obviously so different from the schools I was working at in Uganda and I haven’t really been in any since then. James and I ran an assembly about happiness with a ‘family fortunes’ theme.

I read the Christmas story at a toddler group Christmas party on Tuesday – a bit of a younger audience than I’m used to, but I think that it went well and they seemed to enjoy it.

We had a YFC Christmas social in the evening with some good food and an ‘interesting’ game of articulate!

In the evening I picked up Clare – one of the girls that I was with in Uganda, as she came to stay for a few days. It was so lovely to see her and just to be together again after so long.
On Wednesday evening we got to speak to Alex on Skype from Uganda for his birthday. Alex is Smile Uganda's project manager who we lived with.

Clare came along to the DofE group that I volunteer at on Wednesday and helped me with planning on Thursday for Rock Solid. We went to meet my friend Rachel for a coffee and then went to the beach for a while. Rock Solid in the evening was really good fun, and then on Friday, Clare and I went for a walk before we had to start getting ready for Vibe – a youth event in the evening. I introduced the century old Randall family tradition of ‘Fishing Over the Door’ to everyone at Vibe, which they all thought was really odd!

Clare and I left the island on Saturday morning and went on a road trip to Oxford. We stopped in Winchester to look around the Christmas market and to get some lunch (where Clare managed to pour almost a whole jug of water over me! We ended up stood in the bathroom – me in a cubicle whilst Clare dried my jeans under the hand drier!). We arrived at Clare’s home in Eynsham in the afternoon and picked up Andrew (another gapper) in the evening. Over the weekend we accumulated more gappers until we were all together on Monday. We had such a lovely time together. It’s just nice to be together again. We also got a Skype call from our friends in Uganda who just happened to all be together at the Smile house for a Christmas party on the same day! Wow! It was such a blessing to all be together again, and it felt like we had never been apart. We did lots of catching up, but generally just enjoyed being with one another for a while.

So it's Christmas now and I'll be driving home tomorrow morning and staying in Basingstoke for a couple of weeks.
Please pray this week for...

- Christmas - that everyone will have a lovely time.

- Pray that I'll have a good rest and enjoy spending time with friends and family.